Channel Idents

To gain ideas for visual techniques for my film poster, 

I've researched some media such as newspapers, maps and comic books. I haven't yet

looked at digital imagery, hence I have researched some

channel idents.

A channel ident is essentially a television channel's identity to separate itself from other channels. The ident represents the channel in between programmes or either side of the advert breaks, usually in the form of a short animation. Usually there are more than one ident which follow the same features or pattern. Some examples are below: 

BBC 1: idents usually consist of:

• The logo in the centre of a circle
• The circle consists of a round object or animated images to create a circle
• Animation

A rough storyboard/ timeline of the hippo
BBC 1 ident. It begins with hippo's swimming randomly, before forming a circle. The logo appears through animation and the hippo's continuing to swim to maintain the circle. These idents would all be computer generated. 

I like how random things (hippos in this case) have been used to identify the channel. It is quite abstract because of this, but its the circle coupled with the logo which let viewers recognise it.

Channel 4: idents include:

• A consistent scene - usually outdoors
• Combination of real-life footage and computer generated images
• Still components. Instead pans the camera and perspective across to reveal the logo

 Another timeline, this time for Channel 4.
In this scene, the landscape and hay bales there are presumably real footage; however the levitated hay bales would be computer generated. 
With these idents, it isn't the objects which move like the BBC 1 example, but the camera.
The camera slowly pans across the  

 landscape and gradually reveals the logo in 
doing so. 

I like the effect of using perspective rather than more complex animations - it is just as powerful. Because of this, I have learned that more complex concepts aren't always better than simpler solutions.